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Reading is good for your brain
Researchers at Stanford University are working with neurobiological experts, radiologists and humanities scholars to explore the connection between reading, attention and distraction. Participating students were asked to read a Jane Austen text—both close reading and skimming—while inside an MRI machine. Initial results revealed a significant increase in blood flow to regions of the brain, said Natalie Phillips, the literary scholar leading the project. Phillips said the increase in blood flow during close reading suggests that “paying attention to literary texts requires the coordination of multiple complex cognitive functions.” Blood flow also increased during pleasure reading, but in different areas of the brain. The research is “one of the first MRI experiments to study how our brains respond to literature” and “how cognition is shaped not just by what we read, but how we read it.”
Teacher has egg, not paint, on her face
A Grade 4 teacher in Idaho is being criticized for allowing her students to decide the consequences for not achieving a set reading goal. The students decided to draw with permanent markers on the faces of students who failed. Slow readers had their faces drawn on in the morning and were told to leave the markings on all day. Parents have accused the teacher of bullying and humiliating the students. A grandfather of two students whose faces were marked commented: “I think children should feel safe at school and know the adults there will protect them.”
